Road Pricing Effect on the Emission of Traffic Pollutants, a Case Study in Tehran

Abstract: Road pricing is one
of the main purposes of traffic management policies in order to reduce personal
car use. Understanding the behaviour of drivers under the impact of the road
pricing policy, can assist transportation planners in making better and more
efficient decisions. This research aims at investigating the reactions of
private car users to road pricing using stated preference (SP) method on the
one hand, and on the other hand, studies the road pricing effect on traffic
flow and pollutants. To this aim, the acceptance rate of pricing, which is
obtained from modeling of survey data, as well as real traffic flow data in
Shahid Hemmat Highway in Tehran, Iran, are applied as the simulation software
input. Based on the results of this research, at the lowest price (TN11000),
the contribution of toll acceptance is equal to 64/91 percent. The fuel
consumption rate at this price decreases to 49/91% and the emission rate of
CO2, NOx, particle material (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
pollutants decrease to 56.82%, 49.46%, 36.8% and 63.17%, respectively. At the
highest price (TN10000), toll acceptability, fuel consumption, CO2, NOx, PM and
VOC emission rates decrease to 5.47%, 3.57%, 3.98%, 2.85%, 1.22% and 4.86%,
respectively.